Guyana receives World ‘No Tobacco’ Day award

DPI, Guyana, Thursday, May 31, 2018

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has bestowed Guyana with an award in recognition of its recent strides made in tobacco control.

Today, May 31 is World ‘No Tobacco’ Day and governments across the world will channel their efforts towards the sensitisation of the harmful use of tobacco and tobacco products under this year’s theme of “Tobacco and Heart Disease”.  Member states are mandated to embark on a campaign highlighting the link between tobacco and cardiovascular diseases including strokes, which when combined are the world’s leading causes of death.

“Guyana has much to celebrate… today our efforts have been duly rewarded. Guyana is the proud recipient of the World ‘No Tobacco’ Day award, conferred by The World Health Organisation’s – Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO-FCTC) upon countries in the region of the Americas,” Minister of Public Health Volda Lawrence proudly stated on Wednesday at the launch of Health Expo 2018.

In the past two years the government has created stringent tobacco control legislation which was passed in Parliament and assented to by President Granger in August 2017.

The Tobacco Control Act incorporates certain WHO measures under the acronym MPOWER:

• Monitor tobacco use and prevention policies
• Protect people from exposure to tobacco smoke by creating completely smoke-free indoor public places, workplaces and public transport
• Offer help to quit tobacco (cost-covered, population-wide support, including brief advice by health care providers and national toll-free quit lines);
• Warn about the dangers of tobacco by implementing plain/standardized packaging, and/or large graphic health warnings on all tobacco packages and implementing effective anti-tobacco mass media campaigns that inform the public about the harms tobacco use and second-hand smoke exposure.
• Enforce comprehensive bans on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship
• Raise taxes on tobacco products and make them less affordable.

At the ongoing health expo, patrons can benefit from educational sessions on the harmful effects of tobacco.

 

By: Delicia Haynes.

 

Note: Information extracted from World Health Organisation Website and local content provided by Director, Chronic Diseases Unit, Ministry of Public Health, Dr, Kavita Singh